stubob

Inspired by this Bill Connelly post at sbnation about Nebraska, I wanted to look at the upcoming coaching change in terms of developing talent, and exceeding or underperforming expectations. In the article Bill asserts that comparing performance ranking to recruiting ranking is a reasonable way of determing performance.

So I took that theory and applied it to Michigan's past coaches, some of our leading candidates, and our competition to see what I could see. I tried to use the most recent tenure as possible, to show comparisons relative to each other. One thing that stood out early was that almost every coach underperformed expectations, but with most of these coaches recruiting at top-10 level, it would be hard not to. Without further ado, here's what I found.

Michigan Men

Let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start.

coach

school

years

recruiting avg

f+ avg

+/-

career recruiting average

career f+ average

career +/

Hoke

Michigan

2011

26

9

17

Hoke

2012

6

20

-14

Hoke

2013

4

37

-33

Hoke

2014

20

58

-38

14

31

-17

Rodriguez

Michigan

2008

11

73

-62

Rodriguez

2009

12

58

-46

Rodriguez

2010

17

47

-30

13.33333

59.33333

-46

Carr

Michigan

2004

6

Carr

2005

5

12

-7

Carr

2006

9

6

3

Carr

2007

8

28

-20

7.333333

15.33333

-8

Not much we don't already know. Carr started tailing off, Rodriguez improved from a terrible start, and Hoke has fallen off after an outlier of a start. One interesting way to view this would be year-by-year, since obviously Carr's last year preceeds Rodriguez's first, etc. Michigan's recruiting has been very good, except for Hoke's first class, which still almost ended up top-25. Performance has been great (but not exceptional) to, well, I don't need to remind you how bad 2008 was (worst of any analyzed here).

The Contenders

coach

school

years

recruiting avg

f+ avg

+/-

career recruiting average

career f+ average

career +/

Harbaugh

Stanford

2007

44

66

-22

Harbaugh

2008

45

58

-13

Harbaugh

2009

18

31

-13

Harbaugh

2010

24

6

18

32.75

40.25

-7.5

Mullen

Miss St

2011

34

49

-15

Mullen

2012

22

62

-40

Mullen

2013

25

33

-8

Mullen

2014

35

5

30

29

37.25

-8.25

Patterson

TCU

2011

30

18

12

Patterson

2012

29

31

-2

Patterson

2013

35

44

-9

Patterson

2014

42

4

38

34

24.25

9.75

Miles

LSU

2011

8

2

6

Miles

2012

14

10

4

Miles

2013

6

17

-11

Miles

2014

2

14

-12

7.5

10.75

-3.25

Pelini

Nebraska

2011

16

28

-12

Pelini

2012

30

19

11

Pelini

2013

22

39

-17

Pelini

2014

36

25

11

26

27.75

-1.75

Yep, Stanford went from underperforming to outperforming expectations, even as recruiting improved. Performance went from average to excellent, and recruiting went from above average to good. That's pretty good performance in both categories, and will be hard to beat for the candidates we've selected.

At this point, I couldn't decide whether to order by who's best or who's most likely to accept if offered. Since we're all dreaming at this poit, I decided to go with who's best.

Dan Mullen started off with above-average recruiting, and improved some, but not much of the last four years. But the performance improvement is amazing. His team went from average to elite in two years. How much regression would we expect next year? Well, their four year average is about 37, offset against an upward overall scoring trend.

Gary Patterson is pretty much the poster child for over-achieving. Recruiting in the mid-30's, with teams outperforming by almost 10 spots. It's easy to see why people are trippig over themselves to see what he'd do with a top-10 recruiting clss. Recruiting hasn't gotten much better, but he's been there for so long, and competing against Texas and everyone else for recruits, it's tough to imagine them rising much higher than they are. Performance had been sliding backwards until this year, but still inline with expectations overall.

Next up, somewhat surprisingly is Bo Pelini. I was somewhat surprised that Nebraska fired him, especially after winning their last game, but the writing has been on the wall since the open-mike comments last year. Pelini has performed about inline with expectations or better, which was a little surprising. I didn't realize how far down Nebraska was in the recruiting rankings, which does explain their performance a bit. Recruiting in the mid-20s, performance in the mid-20s, trending improvement. We could certainly do worse.

The Hat. Looks like the consensus on him is pretty accurate. Great recruiter, good on the field, trending downward. Now, part of that is due to their great class this year, which would indicate a potential bounce-back coming, but that's what the numbers say now. Still only -3 relative to expectations, which seems pretty good.

The Competition

coach

school

years

recruiting avg

f+ avg

+/-

career recruiting average

career f+ average

career +/

B Kelly

ND

2011

9

13

-4

B Kelly

2012

18

7

11

B Kelly

2013

5

26

-21

B Kelly

2014

11

34

-23

10.75

20

-9.25

Meyer

OSU

2012

5

14

-9

Meyer

2013

2

9

-7

Meyer

2014

3

3

0

3.333333

8.666667

-5.33333

Saban

Alabama

2011

1

1

0

Saban

2012

1

1

0

Saban

2013

1

2

-1

Saban

2014

1

1

0

1

1.25

-0.25

Muschamp

Florida

2011

12

34

-22

Muschamp

2012

4

4

0

Muschamp

2013

3

48

-45

Muschamp

2014

9

39

-30

7

31.25

-24.25

Dantonio

State

2011

32

11

21

Dantonio

2012

33

15

18

Dantonio

2013

37

6

31

Dantonio

2014

25

15

10

31.75

11.75

20

Obviously Muschamp isn't competition any more, but I included him to compare with Hoke. Florida had better recruits, but has been unable to do much with them, 2012 excepted. As a result, he comes in with a score between Hoke and Rodriguez, and, not surprisingly looking for a new job.

Urban Meyer is improving a loaded OSU team, from underperforming to meeting expectations in just three years. They've had top-5 recruiting classes, and the performance is starting to match. No reason to expect otherwise next year, unless the coordinators get poached (please, everyone poach their coordinators).

Nick Saban, well, what is there to say? Number one recruiting classes all four years, number one performance all four years. Technically that's five years of recruiting, since so many recruits don't make it to campus, but those are the numbers I have. Newsflash: Alabama is good, has been good, and probably will be good.

Brian Kelly at ND was a bit of a surprise. I didn't realize how far down their performance was. Next year could be make-or-break for him, and if their performance continues to slide, I'm not sure where he would wind up next. I was actually considering him as a possible candidate, but after looking at the numbers, I'm not convinced. We know he can recruit, but seems to be having trouble putting it on the field

Finally, Mark Dantonio. Tip of the hat to you, you crazy nutball. Recruiting in the mid-30s, top 15 performances. That's pretty clear evidence of outperforming expectations.

Conclusion

So after looking at year-to-year performance, I charted the overall relative over/underperformance of each coach. Here's the result.

So, what does all this tell us? Well, it's easier to outperform expectations when you're lower in the recruiting rankings. If you have a top-10 class, there's not much room to outperform. It's really about meeting expectations at that point. Harbaugh is the only coach I profiled with consistent improvement, but as far as our best available candidates, can you believe it's Dantonio, Patterson, and Pelini?

This week The Ugly Game of the week hands out our very own post season awards. I may call these the Schnellys, since 1. he almost ended his career with a winless season, 2. karma is a bitch after all those years at Miami, and 3. just look at the guy:

No, wait, that's Captain Kangaroo. My mistake. Here we go:
Here clearly is the most interesting man in the world.

The "Viagra" award for inability to score is a tie between New Mexico and Florida Atlantic. New Mexico is last in red-zone efficiency, scoring at a 61% rate (Stanford leads with 63 for 64 attempts), while FlaAtl is last in total offense. Both teams are 119th and 120th in scoring offense. That's a toss-up to me. Congratulations, you both win. No, I'm not going to GIS for anything related to Viagra, at work or ever.

The "Turnstyle" award for worst defense goes to Kansas. Dead last in total and scoring defense, they've given up 50+ 4 times, and 40+ 8 times (including one in a win). Turner Gill, we hardly knew ya. Well Kansas, there's always basketball.

Worst Coach Still Employed goes to Robb Akey of the Idaho Vandals. The Vandals are 19-43 since 2007, and 2-10 this year. It's cold and lonely in Idaho, so maybe they could get Dennis Erickson back a la Billy Martin. Honorable mention goes to Rick Stockstill, coach of the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, for having the best MST3K "Big McLargeHuge" name on a 2-10 team. Because I can:

Worst Combined Record in a Bowl Game goes to Florida versus Ohio State in the TaxSlayer.com (sic) bowl. Both teams are 6-6 and 3-5 in conference. Both teams are about +5 Points For/Points Against, and neither team is very good on offense. Honorable mention goes to Illinois versus UCLA for playing without coaches. I expect someone on the sidelines spinning a Twister spinner thing calling plays "Run Left! Pass Right!" Not quite what I had in mind, but it'll do:

And the award for The Worst Team in the Country goes to New Mexico, who combines their bad defense with an equally bad offense, making one wonder if they could beat themselves, and if so, how? Honorable mention goes to UNLV, who managed to lose to New Mexico by a TD. New Mexico started off the season with a 4 point loss to CSU, then got clobbered by Arkansas and Texas Tech. They took Sam Houston State to OT, scoring a game-tying TD as time expired, but had to settle for a FG in OT and couldn't stop the Bearkats (sic). The bright spot on the season was against UNLV, scoring on their first play and second drive, then missed two FG attempts, finally scoring a TD in the last minute to seal it. New Mexico does have the spectacularly named Crusoe Gongbay at running back.

It's Thanksgiving week, so here's my list of things I'm thankful for (on the topic of ugly games, that is).

1. Eastern is bowl-egible. They've got a long way to go to get the third MAC bowl spot, but they can at least dream of the Famous Idaho Potao Bowl. Don't we all. Beating Northern Illinois this week would help their chances a little, but they'll need some help. Northern Illinois looks to be in the upper echelon of MAC teams, with a 6-1 conference record and winning a trackmeet against Toledo 63-60. That game featured 11 passing TDs. Bonus EMU related thankfulness: me making ESPN wonder "Why is Eastern's page getting so much traffic from Colorado?" I know Eastern is the Eagles, but they will always be the EMUs to me.

2. Florida Atlantic is down to their last two chances to end the season winless. I think I'm becoming a kinder, gentler person who wants to see them win. Unless I don't like their coach or something, like Alabama. Their next two games are against teams with 3 wins, but Troy was in that category as well and FAU lost by 27. FAU has a -24 point scoring difference, so this may be a big hill to climb for the Owls.UAB is almost as bad, with a -22 point scoring difference, but I think the competition in C-USA is better than the Sun Belt. I'm going with green bean casserole, because who likes green bean casserole?

3. The Big East. I could have written this entire column for the season with just the Big East. For example: the team currently leading is Louisville, 6-5 overall. Rutgers is tied with a conference record of 4-2, then Cincinnati and West Virginia are tied at 7-3, 3-2. I'm really hoping that Louisville beats USF and everybody else loses so there can be a 5 loss team in the BCS. There's way too many combinations at this point to figure it out, but at best, a 9-3 team is going to win the conference. This one gets the KFC Potato Bowl, because everything is in one big pile, and the end is not very good.

Now with bacon!

4. That everything looks like it's shaping up for Sparty to get fed to Oklahoma, or Oregon, or Arkansas. Karma, baby. The crazy man throwing the pie should be Chip Kelly.

Hey, Seth created the cupcakes tag for me, so I'm beating this dead horse until the end of the season. This week, we go Ugly, Old School. That's it, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the mid-week MAC games. They're not games. They're the old football games where the pieces would buzz around the board. They're Rock-em-Sock-em Robots. They're monkey boxing. You know, these guys
I mean, Western and Toledo scored 129 points. If you were playing a drinking game where you had to do a shot on every turnover, you'd be dead.

Florida Atlantic is the last school without a win this season. Here's their season stats: passing yards - 111th, rushing yards - 115th, points for - 120th, points against - 107. In addition, they are playing Troy, who is no slouch themselves. "Don't sell yourself short, you're an incredible slouch." Troy has two wins, against Middle Tennessee and UAB, and is also right around the 100 mark in points for and against. Why are there so many schools named Owls? Who thinks owls are menacing? (Sorry about the links, embedding is disabled for some reason).http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tfZ9KTXK5sY#t=79s

Speaking of Owls, Rice plays Tulane. Rice is 2-4 in conference and coming off a drubbing by Northwestern. Tulane just got pantsed by Houston, 73-17. The last competitive game they played was against Syracuse, which says a lot about Syracuse. They've lost 8 straight conference games. I think this one comes down to logo, and if you squint, the Rice "R" looks like an owl facing left. So advantage Owls. "A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish."http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tfZ9KTXK5sY#t=240s

Last, we have an "I Have No Idea" game between Penn State and Ohio State. Does Penn State deserve their #12 ranking? Is Ohio State better or worse than 6-4? Can either team move the ball far enough to kick a field goal, or will we see a "Fair Catch Kick" decide the game 3-0? "Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=171FURqSIQc

The Ugly Game of the Week has deja vu all over again. So after last weeks' MAC-tion, featuring such games as Northern Illinois 63, Toledo 60 and Miami 35, Akron 3, we get another 4 midweek MAC games. I just can't do it again. You know how after you look at your monitor all day, it starts looking funny? Well, I swear I've looked at Western Michigan versus Toledo already. So instead, since the season is starting to wind down, this week starts Bad Bowl Watch 2011. Who's looking to be bowl eligible, and what does that mean for our faith in humanity? (Note to self: do not google "deja vu" at work. Or at home.) So instead I will haunt your dreams.

First off, Temple is 5-4 and 3-3 in the MAC. This week they play Miami(the hockey one). Temple has been to three bowls in their history: 1935, 1979 and 2009. They need to win at least one of their remaining games against Miami, Army or Kent State and they're in. Remember this is the same Temple that was forced out of the Big East in 2004 for a "lack of commitment to the football program from university officials." The MAC has three bowl bids, and there's a huge pileup at 5-4 vying for the 4th slot, so this is really up in the air. In MAC-land, bowl eligible != bowl bound. But the MAC gets to choose from such exotic locales as the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, the Little Caesars Bowl Bowl, and GoDaddy.com Bowl featuring MAC versus someone from the Sun Belt. This is an amazing image, by the way. Look closer.

Syracuse is 5-4, 1-3 in the Big East. This week they play USF to try for their 6th win. Their bowl eligibility may come down to the season finale agsinst Pitt, who is currently 4-5. I think there is still a scenario where Syracuse can win the Big East and get a BCS bid. I'm all for this. The Big East gets five bowl bids, so Syracuse has to climb over the likes of UConn and Pitt or Rutgers to win their way into the Beef O'Brady Bowl or the Champs Sports Bowl. Whoo? Whoo. Note that "orange optical illusion" doesn't come up with much, so this is all I've got:

The UGotW presses on irregardlessly. This week featuring hot, hot MAC-tion. Someone at ESPN must have lost a bet, and that bet was "I bet you can't show 4 straight MAC games with a straight face." That was quickly followed by the other guy saying "Oh yeah? Watch this!" So we get this:

As an aside, GIS for "big mac" also gets this:

Which means I'm not looking any further for that image at work. Rule 34 and all.

Tuesday rings in November and week 10 of the NCAA football season with Northern Illinois and Toledo. Both teams are 5-3 and battling for the lead for the MAC west division, with EMU I might add. Edge in this one goes to Toledo for playing without a nickname until 1923, then created one on a whim by a reporter for the student paper. The Daily would be proud.

Wednesday continues the Two Good MAC teams theme, with Temple playing The University of Ohio. Both teams are 5-3, and battling for the MAC east lead. So is this ESPN's new plan? To show hard-fought battles between two plucky, undersized, understaffed teams to show the amateur nature of college athletics? Or, to hype up THE GAME OF THE MILLENIUM: LSU VERSUS ALABAMA!!! THE ALABAMAGEDDON! That is a retorical question.

Moving on, MAC week starts running out of steam on Wednesday with Akron playing Miami (The hockey school, not the football school). Akron is still looking for their first conference win, while Miami just got buffaloed by the Buffalo Buffalo. At least there's an ACC "game" on opposite, FSU versus Boston College. BC has the tiebreaker for worst record in the ACC by virtue of their win against Maryland last week. FSU get the "Deja Vu" award for beating Duke and Maryland by the same score in back-to-back weeks, 41-16. One extra point for the odd 41 and 16 point scores. That's a Brian-level prediction.

Friday ends MAC week with a thud, with Central playing Kent State. Central is last in the Battle For Michigan, an imaginary trohpy I made up for the Michigan directional schools. Eastern won it, with Western taking a solid second. Northern did not play. Now that I've written 1600 words about the MAC, let me say a couple things about Friday's other game: USC versus Colorado. USC may not be as good as they usually are, but CU is worse than usual. Their lone win this year was against rival CSU, and they're hanging around the bottom of most NCAA categories. They are giving up just under 40 points per game. I have a friend who went to CU, and I haven't been able to call him in months.

Saturday will be like a bright, sunshine-y spring day after that week. But, just because they can, Hawaii versus Utah State starts at 12:00 eastern Sunday, making for six straight days of bad football. Hooray Rainbows!